


five stages of coping with the inevitable

by glitterpile



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, Humor, M/M, Post-Canon, Russian Culture, Swearing, Translation, how the hell is Russian Culture not a tag in THIS fandom wtf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 21:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14819136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitterpile/pseuds/glitterpile
Summary: Yuuri had to go through a lot before he could accept the “Russian” part of himself.Translated from Russian.





	five stages of coping with the inevitable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gingerminded](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerminded/gifts).
  * A translation of [пять стадий принятия неизбежного](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/386556) by gingerminded. 



> From the second part onwards Yuuri is pretty decent at both speaking and understanding Russian!
> 
> Japanese used:  
> Сhikushou - damn  
> Bakayaro - like baka/idiot, but with more emotional emphasis  
> Mou, urusai! - "mou" is an indication that someone’s patience is ending, while "urusai" means “noisy” and is equivalent to “shut up!”

Of course, Yuuri knew theoretically speaking that each culture had its own quirks and traditions, but he immediately realised that nothing was easy with Russians (especially since Viktor justified any and all bizarre crap on his part - from the endless advances to the molestation his ears received on his birthday - with the words “ah, well we all do things like this”). 

 

**Denial: the person refuses to accept that which has happened to them.**

The newlyweds, who were also coach and student, _and_ competitors, decided to start off by working partially under Yakov, and thus to live together in Saint Petersburg. Yuuri was scared of the other Russians by default, because just one of them was enough to blow Yuuri away in the hurricane of his thoughts and actions, and here they were flying to a place with almost 150 million of them. 

‘Relax, they can’t be all the same as Viktor across the board,’ Yuuri tried to convince himself, as the airplane started its descent into Pulkovo. 

‘They simply can’t, surely?’ the less certain thought flitted through Yuuri’s head as they traversed the passport control. 

And approximately nothing was left in Yuuri’s head when they were greeted by Yurio, Georgi, Mila and - how did they even drag him into this? - Yakov in traditional Russian costume and some sort of wildly oversized bread loaf carried on a towel. 

“Yuuri, these are our traditions, don’t worry!” joyfully exclaimed Viktor, kissing his husband on the cheek and tearing off a piece from the monster baked good. “We greet guests with bread and salt!”  
“Right… traditions,” Yuuri replied in fear, adjusting his glasses and not even trying to avoid the figure skaters pressing in on him from all sides. 

‘Maybe they are?!?!’ flashing red warning signs went off in the Japanese man’s head, as he also pinched off a piece of bread. 

 

**Anger: the person displays aggression to everything around them.**

Yuuri yet again tripped over Viktor’s boots, which had been left in the middle of the corridor, almost fell over and hit his knee against the shoe cabinet. 

‘What irony!’ Yuuri thought spitefully, rubbing his bruised leg, although out loud he said something else entirely. 

“Сhikushou! Viktor, bakayaro, how many times!” loudly yelled the man in irritation, using his husband’s full name and partially shifting to his native language. Clearly, his husband hadn’t heard him, because he (like always) was doing something unspeakably noisy in the kitchen. 

“Yuuri, my love! You won’t believe what happened!” loudly said Viktor, yelling over some sort of Russian pop playing from the portable speaker, Makkachin’s deep barking and the beeping oven. “I went out for flour and chocolate into the ‘Pyatyorochka’ across the road, and there is Auntie Zina from the neighbouring stairwell, also buying flour - can you believe it?! What are the chances of such a coincidence? And I also decided to buy two bilberry rolls, one for each of us. But I ate mine, and, gods, how do they bake such delicious things? Anyway, I also ate yours, sorry, please forgive me! And also I saw such an awesome pigeon, it-” 

“VIKTOR!” Yuuri snapped from the din and the flow of useless information. “Mou, urusai! Turn that off, I can’t deal any more! And explain to me why all you Russians keep trying to tell me your entire life story and then some, what ever for?” 

“Yuuri, what’s wrong?” his husband asked blankly, turning off the music.

“The ticket inspector on the bus,” Yuuri continued to rage, “spent fifteen minutes telling me how she assisted in birthing a cow! VIKTOR. FIFTEEN MINUTES. ABOUT COW BIRTH. I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING, I EVEN TOLD HER THAT I DON’T SPEAK RUSSIAN SO THAT SHE WOULD STOP. SHE DIDN’T STOP. I COULD NOW EVEN ASSIST WITH A BIRTH MYSELF! KAMI-SAMA, WHY ARE YOU ALL SUCH RELENTLESS GOSSIPS?!” Yuuri blurted out in a single go. 

Yuuri let out a deep breath and looked at his as yet bewildered husband. 

“Sorry,” he slowly got his breath back and walked over to kiss Viktor lightly on the lips. 

“Don’t worry, sunshine,” Viktor softly smiled, “You’re just tired.” 

“It’s just… you’re all so loud. I think I’ll go and lie down for a while. You should clean up a little, please, you’ve somehow managed to get batter on the ceiling,” Yuuri said with a yawn and headed in the direction of the bedroom. 

 

**Bargaining: the person starts to think of ways to get a better deal.**

When the Russian skate squad suggested that Viktor and Yuuri take a trip somewhere and show his foreign husband some of Russia outside the city, they agreed. But Yuuri didn’t think that “to take a trip” would be with an emphasis on “the trip”. Yuuri begged Viktor to go by plane, but in the end it was fruitless, and now they were loading themselves onto a train, with a total journey of four days ahead of them (and why did they need to haul themselves over such a distance in the first place?). In fact, besides their luggage, Mila, Georgi and Viktor were dragging around several bags with some contents unknown to Yuuri, and even Yurio had some sort of plastic bag with him. 

About twenty minutes after the train started moving, Mila pulled from her bag a big foil-wrapped roast chicken, Gosha revealed cucumbers and tomatoes, Viktor - hard-boiled eggs and salt, while Yura brought from the conductor four (Yuuri refused) glasses of boiling water in pretty tea glass holders. 

Yuuri wailed into his pillow on the top bunk at the realisation that he has to travel with these people for four whole days. 

“Maybe I can convince that ticket inspector to let me move to a different coupe? Or maybe just to strangle me, that’s good too”, Yuuri tried to think of ways out of the unfolding situation, as the Russians sitting below were full-on constructing chicken sandwiches and playing ‘durak’. 

 

**Depression: the person can stay in a depressive state for many days.**

“Everywhere… they’re everywhere… I can’t keep going like this,” Yuuri was almost crying, curled into a foetal position on the bed, while on the floor stood an entire fort of used mugs with dregs of tea and coffee, and surrounding the mug keep was a long moat of dirty socks. 

 

**Acceptance: the person yields to their unavoidable fate.**

Yuuri didn’t quite understand how it all happened. It seemed like just yesterday he was an exemplary Japanese citizen, polite and conscientious, talking in clean English with his coach/partner/husband (underline as appropriate). So how was it, that he was now sitting on someone else’s couch in strange black Adidas sweatpants bought for 300 roubles,

_“I have blue ones, and you’ll have black ones! Isn’t that cute, Yuuri?” yelled Viktor from the threshold, when he returned on Sunday from his weekly trip to the local street markets and shops (another strange Russian tradition, he supposes). His fashion house loving snob had transformed, in Yurio’s words, into “the basest white trash”._

in a ratty grey t-shirt which he was wearing for the third day straight, and with a piece of bread with a slice of baloney on top in one hand and a mug of sweet, strong black tea in the other (oh yes, and don’t forget about the incredible grey socks with polka dots and stunning black slippers worn together)? This complete Russification had clearly been in progress for a long time, but, probably, the two week break in training and their arrival to Yura’s grandpa’s dacha served as a catalyst and the transformation had rapidly increased in speed.

Viktor and Yurio were currently occupied with pulling a huge decorative rug off the wall. When Yuuri had first seen this brilliance of interior design, he had wanted to ask the logical question “why?”, but then realised that the answer would be absolutely identical to all those other similar situations. While Yuuri finished chewing his breakfast, the Russians had used their muscles to overwhelm the stiff chunk of fabric in deadly combat and successfully rolled it up. 

“Yuuri, let’s go! I’ll show you such a sight, love!” said Nikiforov, pulling the mug out of Yuuri’s hand, grabbing his sports jacket and pushing him out onto the street, asking him to wait a little with a peck on the lips. Yuuri didn’t even have time to realise what had happened, and so didn’t end up putting up a fight. 

The house was within one of the smaller outer suburban regions of Moscow, nearby were a few others in the same style, and not far away were even a few five storey blocks; so the plot of land itself wasn’t all that large and the house had a porch out onto the typical Russian common yard with a playground and some benches. That was where Viktor and Yurio were headed, having dragged the rug out into the light and shoved into Yuuri’s hands some strange object that looked like an utterly useless flyswatter. Yuuri trudged in their stead: after all, he should have a look at whatever it is his husband has promised him. 

The Russian, also dressed according to the latest fashion (sweatpants and slippers over socks), hung the rug onto a long horizontal bar and retrieved the flyswatter from Yuuri. 

“Sit down, this will be a while,” said Yurio, slouching onto a bench not far from Viktor’s construction. Yuuri, already paying no attention to Yurio’s comments, sat nearby and stared at his husband who was doing something inconceivable. 

Viktor, standing in some sort of parody of a crane stance, threw up his hands and with a loud, almost shrieking “Kee-ee-ya!” forcefully hit the rug with, as it turned out, the rug beater, instantly releasing a little cloud of dust. 

To tell the truth, Yuuri didn’t even have time to be shocked, because he exploded into laughter when Viktor clumsily jumped back and repeated his kung-fu moves on the rug a second time. Completely accepting the “Russian” part of his being, Yuuri roared out for the entire yard to hear in Russian: 

“Fucking hit it, Vitya! Fuck it up!”

Now it was Viktor’s and Yura’s turn to crack up with laughter, and Viktor worked himself up to fever pitch and was thrashing the rug in a way that even his worst enemy wouldn’t deserve. Plisetsky joined in on the victorious cry through tears in his eyes, and the next “hit it!” in one voice with Katsuki echoed across the whole block. 

When a post on an “Overheard today” group about their adventures was seen a few days later and made Yura laugh uproariously, and Viktor even more, as he thought about what would have happened if they’d been recognised, Yuuri laughed right along with them, because… “ _we_ all do things like this”.

**Author's Note:**

> 300 roubles = about 5 USD. 
> 
> [Here’s an article about wall carpets.](https://www.rbth.com/arts/2014/01/10/behind_the_mystery_of_wall_carpets_32165)  
>  
> 
> [Some fanart of the last scene.](https://vk.com/wall-119267939_801)  
>   
> First picture translates to:  
> “Overheard
> 
> In the yard is a scene like an oil painting: a guy vehemently, with feeling beating out a rug, and on a bench nearby two more dudes sit and shout in unison for the whole yard to hear: “Fucking hit it, Vitya! Fuck it up!””
> 
> ___
> 
> hit me up on [tumblr](https://tasty-pile-of-glitter.tumblr.com/)


End file.
